Governor touts plan to invest $1 billion in school infrastructure

Tuesday

PORTSMOUTH — Gov. Gina Raimondo toured Portsmouth Middle School on Monday, touting how a $1 billion investment in school infrastructure would address its deficiencies or, perhaps, build a replacement.

She went from room to room with General Treasurer Seth Magaziner, school officials, local politicians and building and trades officials, asking students and faculty for the building’s most pressing needs.

“How would you like to have a new school?” Raimondo asked students in the gym. “This school is more than 50 years old and we think it’s time for a facelift.” Among the requests from the students were bigger lunch tables, an outdoor learning space and a larger library. The original sound system in the auditorium is still being used, according to Principal Joao Arruda and Superintendent Ana Riley.

When the tour reached the classroom of sixth-grade teacher Kyle Spaltholz, he pointed out it doesn’t have windows, leaving stale air hanging in the room.

Other classrooms in the center of the school building also lack windows to the outside. He joked to a reporter that he has toyed with the idea of cutting out a window-size hole in the wall that separates his classroom from another one.

“It’s tough being in a room all day with no windows or airflow,” Raimondo agreed.

Teacher Lisa Pineau said the school’s floors become slick with moisture when it is humid. A musky smell sometimes emanates from the classroom vents, she said.

Those conditions could be allayed with the state and municipalities making a “once-in-a-lifetime” $1 billion investment in school infrastructure that Raimondo and Magaziner are trumpeting. The proposal was the upshot of a study that determined schools across Rhode Island have $2.2 billion in fixes, of which $627.5 million are “high-priority construction and repairs.”

* BACKGROUND: Raimondo budget plan includes $1B for school infrastructure

To fund the investment, Raimondo included in her fiscal 2019 budget proposal a $250 million general obligation bond that would be put on the November ballot. The bond will be vetted by committees in both chambers of the legislature this week, she said.

Raimondo and Magaziner expressed optimism that if the bond garners support from the legislature, it will get the green light from voters.

Projects to make school buildings “warm, safe and dry” are the top priority, according to Raimondo. Funding for other projects will be scored on various criteria, including whether they promote STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), increase energy efficiency and bolster safety. Projects could be eligible for as much as 55 percent in state funding.

“We’re not telling anyone what to do,” she told reporters at the end of the visit. Each municipality “has to decide whether they want to do anything, how they want to do it.”

All school districts would be poised to reap benefits from the funding, not just schools in the urban core, she and Magaziner said.

“It’s an everywhere problem,” he said.

“You might not know Portsmouth is a community that needs a hand to build a new school,” Raimondo said.

Town Council President Keith Hamilton stressed that Portsmouth has continually made upgrades and repairs to its schools, including new roofs, at the expense of taxpayers because of a drop in state aid.

There will always be a need for repairs and fixes to school buildings, Magaziner responded, that would get a boost from the state funding.

The Department of Education’s State of Rhode Island Schoolhouses report released last September found that Rogers High School has the most dire needs in the state, labeling it a “candidate for replacement.”

The report tallied the infrastructure needs in each district and school over the next five years. The Portsmouth district’s needed costs were $61.3 million; Newport’s were about $59.7 million; and Middletown’s were $45.7 million. The cost for new construction was not included in those figures.

“We need schools that meet the technology needs of a modern economy,” said Larry Purtill, president of the National Education Association Rhode Island, in a prepared statement provided by Raimondo’s office. “We need to send a message to all of our students that they are important and we care about their future no matter what community they live in.”

Gomes@NewportRI.com

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